Florida CD-19 The Next National Race

What do the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, the congressional race in NY-23, and the come-from-behind victory of underdog senate candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts all have in common? Each of these local elections had national implications, sending a clear message to the Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration, that the majority of the American People flatly reject their radical left-wing agenda.

Some people, unfortunately, are harder to reach than others, notwithstanding the boldness and clarity of the message. Rather than acknowledge voters’ legitimate concerns and change course accordingly, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama have forcefully recommitted themselves to their leftist ideology, flooring the accelerator and driving America even faster down the dead-end highway of ever-expansive government, higher taxes, socialized healthcare, Cap and Trade legislation, and foreign policy weakness in dealing with our enemies.

As disturbing as it is, this unabashed power-grab and willful disregard for Americans must serve as a motivator and a reminder that we all have an obligation to keep our focus on Washington, D.C. No matter what state we may reside in, we must look upon every race as an opportunity to relentlessly advance the message of limited government, strong national defense and individual liberty. In 2010, we will take our government back one House and Senate seat at a time.

The next step in restoring the republic is upon us. In Florida’s 19^th Congressional District, Republican nominee Edward Lynch Sr. is poised to win in a special election against Democrat Ted Deutch. Deutch is a Florida State Senator who was anointed by his predecessor, Robert Wexler, the self-described “fire-breathing liberal”. Mr. Wexler resigned in January – halfway through his seventh term – to work for a tiny Washington based think-tank. Deutch has made it clear that if he’s elected he will proudly back President Obama’s agenda one-hundred percent.

Edward Lynch, on the other hand, is a conservative Republican who opposes several of the current major pieces of legislation being considered in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Far from being simply obstructionists to a radical, left-wing agenda, Lynch will tell you with conviction that “Republicans aren’t the party of ‘no’, but the party of ‘know’” because we have common-sense solutions to the problems confronting our nation.

Unlike the majority of sitting members of Congress, Edward has actually read the healthcare bills; therefore, he understands that what they contain won’t solve our healthcare problems. On the contrary, the proposed healthcare legislation will have a devastating effect on the populace by raising rates, reducing quality and putting government bureaucrats – not patients and doctors – in control of medical decisions.

Lynch wants free-market health insurance reform that will fix the system for Americans who either can’t afford or qualify for healthcare insurance, without destroying the things that make the American healthcare system the envy of the world. His plan includes common-sense solutions like tort reform, interstate competition for insurance companies, and tax deductions for individuals and small businesses. Not only is this a viable solution to the problem, it costs the taxpayers nothing.

Lynch wants to get Americans back to work by reducing taxes on individuals and small businesses. He wants to reduce the burden of massive federal regulation on businesses and get government out of the business of picking winners and losers in the private sector.

Candidate Lynch is a strong supporter of Israel and believes in a single state solution for our best ally in the Middle East. Lynch believes that Israel has the right to self-defense and to act preemptively, just as the United States would when its citizens are threatened.

Already Bill Clinton has traveled to Florida to fundraise for Lynch’s opponent. The Democrats are scared, and they sure don’t want to lose this reliably liberal seat; therefore, they will do whatever it takes to hold onto it. Pulling out all the stops, they will pour as much money and influence into this campaign as possible. If it means dispatching the Clintons or even Obama himself, make no mistake – they will fight hard.

The stakes in this FL-19 special election are huge – not just for Florida, but for every American who is concerned about the leftward direction our elected officials are frantically steering our republic. Every time a Democrat in a “safe seat” loses, it makes every other Democrat facing reelection in November a bit more nervous about their own future, thus further impeding the crazy, runaway train that is the president’s agenda.

Bluest State Goes Brown

It’s been called the next shot heard around the world, the transformation of the bluest of blue states into a new shade of Brown and a political tsunami – just to name a few. The victory of Senator-elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts should have been a wake-up call to the Obama administration that even in one of the most liberal states in our great union, the out- of-control spending and radical agenda relentlessly rammed down our throats by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid has been resoundingly rejected. But all indications are that President Obama is stubbornly digging in his heels, and “stupidly” (to use his own term) pressing forward in arrogant defiance of the electorate he purports to represent. Despite the fact that Nancy Pelosi has said she doesn’t have the votes to pass healthcare, and the fact that Harry Reid will likely lose his Senate seat in November, the president has stated his intention to do everything he possibly can to pass his agenda.

The good news is that it appears many Democrats are no longer willing to walk the plank for their party’s leader; they aren’t going to risk their careers and political fortunes for a president that simply doesn’t get it – not to mention one whose coattails have already been rendered useless (just ask Creigh Deeds and John Corzine). When a Republican wins a Senate seat previously held for four decades by Edward Kennedy, the logical conclusion is that there is no such thing as a “safe seat” in this election cycle for any Democrat in the country. And you didn’t have to be a psychic to predict the outcome of the Massachusetts race – the signs were there well in advance of last Tuesday’s historic election results. Senator Chris Dodd had already announced his plans to forego another senate term in Connecticut, while Barbara Boxer (or “Ma’am” as I prefer to call her) has been polling poorly against both of her possible Republican opponents for several weeks. Perhaps in reaction to these events, many other congressional Democrats have announced their pending retirements.

Over at MSNBC, the primetime hosts are in mourning, obviously unable to understand why the public has turned sour on the president and congressional Democrats. But rather than present a thoughtful analysis for their viewers as to why this is the case, they resort to smearing those who disagree with their radical, leftist agenda as “racists” and “teabaggers” (a vulgar term that has no place on any respectable news outlet). Keith Olbermann went so far as to declare Scott Brown a racist simply for driving around his home state in his pick-up truck, making an effort to meet the folks he desired to represent (while his opponent apparently couldn’t be bothered seeking the approval of the masses).

In one of the most bizarre incidents, Chris Matthews and former DNC chair Howard Dean faced off on ‘Hardball’, trying to decide which of them was crazier. The “highlight” of this fiasco occurred when Howard Dean scolded Matthews, “There’s only one crazy person sitting at this table and I’m about ready to hold up a mirror so you can see his face.” If you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to go YouTube to witness the absurdity for yourself.

So what lessons should we take away from all of this? Most importantly, in the aftermath of the 2008 election of Obama, there is no such thing as a “safe seat” in this entire country for either party anymore. The people are tired and they’re angry – enraged by the out-of-control spending, the backroom deals, and the unprecedented expansion of the Federal Government and the trampling of the Constitution by those who are sworn to protect it.

Republicans should proceed with caution and avoid all assumptions of automatically winning a race by virtue of having an “R” after their names. Candidates, now more than ever, will be required to convince voters that they’re worthy of the honor of representing them on every level of government.

I am a Republican, but I’m looking for Republicans that stand for the core principles of our Party: lower taxes; smaller government; personal responsibility; strong national defense; and adherence to the Constitution, which is a limiting document for the Federal Government – not the people. With that said, as a Republican, I expect that when a primary has ended and the dust has settled, the losing primary candidates support the nominee chosen by the constituents in their districts. Ronald Reagan, the conservative icon, said that a Republican should never speak ill of another Republican. When he lost his first presidential primary to Gerald Ford, he supported the Party’s nominee, because he knew two things; first that the Republican candidate was better than the Democrat alternative, and second (and more importantly) that the people had spoken.

Ultimately the government only has as much power as we the people give them. The Constitution is a limiting document, but the people are the true power in our great republic.

The Haitian Disaster and the Lunatic Fringe

In the wake of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti, the government and people of the United States responded just as we always do when a natural or manmade disaster strikes anywhere in the world: we summoned every resource at our disposal to render aid and comfort to those in need. Within hours of the quake – which has killed as many as 200,000 souls and left tens of thousands more in shock, wounded and homeless – aid in the form of food, water, blankets, clothing, equipment and perhaps most critically, manpower, went forth from the United States to the relentlessly beleaguered island nation.

Almost as quickly as the aid started flowing, however, lunatics on the extreme right and extreme left came out of the woodwork to assign blame to what is by definition, a blameless occurrence. On the fringe right, Pat Robertson shamelessly declared that the people of Haiti were being punished by G-d because they’d made a deal with the Devil when they were trying to expel the French from their country. Robertson, a scriptural literalist, found it necessary to make this highly inappropriate statement in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, just as he did following Hurricane Katrina’s path of destruction of the Gulf Coast of the United States.

On the fringe left, Hugo Chavez-hugging, washed-up actor Danny Glover declared that America and the West were somehow at fault for the Haitian earthquake. This moron, whom Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld described as “nuttier than elephant poop”, also tried to tie the “failure” of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit to the disaster. Perhaps most absurdly, he further claimed that nations like Venezuela – who’d contributed a whopping one planeload of aid – or China – who’d committed a paltry five million dollars to Haiti – were somehow on an even keel with the United States in terms of humanitarian relief.

The USA has poured billions of dollars into Haiti in the past and will likely funnel another billion into the impoverished island nation before all recovery and rebuilding efforts are through. And that’s not even counting the tremendous amount of private donations streaming out of the wallets and bank accounts of hardworking, generous Americans. Ours is an exceptional nation that has done more good and helped more people than any other in the history of the world. Of course, these days you’d never know that listening to our current president, most of Hollywood or the lame-stream media. Nevertheless, it is true – and we prove it every time there’s a tragedy or disaster anywhere on Earth.

For Democrats Taxes Solve Everything

Today President Obama proposed a tax on the 50 largest banks that took TARP money last year. Obama said, “We want our money back.” On the surface it may seem reasonable – to some – to impose a tax on the “greedy” banks that took so much taxpayer money and caused our current financial crisis.

But what’s left out of the president’s argument is that the banks have already paid back two-thirds of the TARP money they borrowed with interest. Also missing from the discussion is the fact many of them didn’t want the TARP money in the first place, but were threatened by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson into taking it, regardless. In addition, several were told that they couldn’t pay back the money last year, after their balance sheets came back into line.

The irony in all of this of course, is that the banks wouldn’t even be in this predicament if it hadn’t been for the unwelcome intrusion of the federal government in the first place. But thanks to Congress – dating back to the CRA Act of 1977 signed into law by Jimmy Carter, and further accelerated by Bill Clinton’s loosening of any reasonable restrictions previously contained within – banks were forced to make high-risk loans to borrowers who could never hope to repay them. Add the thuggery of organizations like ACORN into the mix (whose actions were sanctioned by the federal government in the name of “fairness”), and it’s easy to see how we arrived at this precarious financial destination.

Back in 2005, some sane members of Congress, including Senator McCain, along with President Bush sounded the alarm for reform in the hopelessly corrupt Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, instead of demanding accountability and reining in these organizations, Congress ordered them to make even more bad loans – backing them with hardworking taxpayers’ money.

President Obama’s proposed new tax would be in effect for ten years, and like most taxes, wouldn’t necessarily go away after the TARP funds are repaid. Predictably, the banking industry is opposed, declaring the tax to be punitive and unnecessary. Equally predictably, President Obama resorted to his typical class-warfare tactic by condemning the “massive profits and obscene bonuses” of the banking industry’s top earners as an excuse to exert even more government control.

For the moment at least, we live in a capitalist society, where the free market determines what is appropriate and what is “obscene”, not the government. Banks are comprised of divisions, some of which may profitable while simultaneously, others may be floundering. If the market determines that a high-achieving employee who greatly contributes to the success of his bank or financial institution merits a million-dollar bonus then his company has a choice: either pay him what he’s worth, or lose the valued employee to a competitor that will.

It seems that Democrats think that taxes solve everything. But history has shown that when you keep taxes low you actually create a greater revenue stream. When taxes are low, companies have more money to expand their businesses, and hire and retain high-quality employees. When taxes on individuals are lower, they have more money to purchase things, thus keeping the engine of the American economy – small business – growing. But this is a lesson lost on people that believe that government is the answer to all the nation’s ills. “Cap and Tax” environmental regulations and the Healthcare “reform” bills are just the two largest examples of the attitude that government and higher taxes are the answers to our woes.

The polls clearly show that the American people are ahead of our so-called leaders on this issue. The people know that they can better decide how to spend their hard-earned money than ideologues like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. And they know for sure that in these troubled economic times, they can’t afford any more taxes that are designed to change our behavior, not improve our nation.

The $787 billion “stimulus” didn’t create private sector jobs that would grow our economy and the tax base. What it did stimulate was the growth of government and the salaries of government and union employees. This growth of the federal government only leads to more regulations, fees and taxes that will ultimately prevent small businesses from recovering and in turn our economy as a whole from recovering in a timely fashion. Government doesn’t create wealth; government creates bureaucracy, waste and more dependence on government. It’s a vicious cycle and clearly it is unsustainable.

I Don't Make Promises... (I Can't Break)

“I Don’t Make Promises… (I Can’t Break)” is the title of a song by artist Shannon Curfman. I chose this song as the opening for my Blog Talk Radio program‘Conservative Republican Forum’ (which airs Saturdays at 6PM Eastern) because it seems that politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are incapable of telling the truth to their constituents. It seemed very appropriate for a show about politics in America today.

Republicans lost their majorities in the House and Senate, as well as, the White House because they didn’t keep their promises and acted like Democrats, abandoning fiscal responsibility and expanding government in both size and reach. They deserved to lose and opened the door for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama to breeze into power.

When Barack Obama ran for President he promised the nation change we could “believe in” and many, though not this correspondent, believed him. Candidate Obama promised the most transparent White House in history. He promised that negotiations and deliberations would be on C-Span for the public to see. Obama also promised that there would be no earmarks in any bill he signed into law, “none”. We were told by this president that if his “stimulus” weren’t signed into law that the unemployment rate would soar over 10% and that if it was signed into law that the unemployment rate wouldn’t go above 8%. He said that all bills would be posted on the Internet for a week, so that the public would have the chance to read and comment on them before they were signed into law.

Almost a year into his first (and hopefully only) term it seems that President Obama doesn’t make promises that he can’t break. The only change he’s brought to Washington is an increase in deficit spending and a tremendous expansion in the size of the federal government. The White House wouldn’t even release a list of visitors to the People’s House until a Freedom of Information Act request forced them to so and the President’s transparency taskforce met behind closed doors with no media allowed. The healthcare bills in both the House and Senate have been written, in secret, with no Republicans being allowed to participate. The no earmarks promise has been broken repeatedly, as has the promise to post all legislation on the Internet before being signed into law. The “stimulus” was passed without even the members of Congress reading it and yet the unemployment rate is over 10% nationally and much higher in many states.

It seems that the only promises that are being kept are the ones that Obama and company have made to their cronies, like SEIU and GE. Those are promises that most of us would prefer he break. SEIU was allowed to write the “stimulus” bill which is why union employees, especially those working for the federal government, are getting raises while people all over the country continue to lose their jobs. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whose NBC and MSNBC “news” divisions have been in the tank for Obama from day one, is on the president’s Economic Council and was appointed to the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, when he was in China Obama negotiated a deal for GE to manufacture wind turbines to be sold to China.

So I suggest that from now on, instead of playing “Hail to the Chief” when President Obama enters a room, the band should instead play “I Don’t Make Promises… (I Can’t Break)”.

TEA Party: Movement or Political Party?

The TEA Party movement is an amazing grassroots phenomenon that has energized Americans in every state of the Union. Ordinary citizens, Republican, Independent, Conservative and even Democrat have been inspired and provoked into standing up, speaking out and demanding that their elected officials actually represent them, instead of ignoring and even denigrating them.

However, due to frustration, anger and the misguided idea that a third party is necessary to elect fiscally responsible candidates, the TEA Party has morphed, from a grassroots movement, into a political party in it’s own right. It is now an officially recognized and registered party here in Florida where it will be one of 32 minor political parties.

It’s easy to understand the irritation and dissatisfaction with the GOP that has led some to want another party that represents fiscally conservative principles. I share much of that frustration. But the “solution” may have unintended, though very predictable, consequences. The result of this new party, if it catches on, will be to split the conservative and Republican votes and hand seats to the very liberal candidates that the TEA Partiers seek to remove.

There is a group within the movement that believes that Republicans, across the board, are just as bad as their Democrat counterparts. There is no doubt that the Republican Party as a whole has behaved more like “tax and spend” Democrats, than fiscally responsible Republicans in recent years. The GOP has paid for this behavior with huge losses in both the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. The nation has paid for their behavior with huge spending and deficits that make the Bush administration look almost responsible.

Beyond the out of control spending of the Obama Administration and the Reid/Pelosi ruled Congress, the legislation we’ve seen coming from the Progressives in charge has been all about growing government and increasing it’s impact on the day-to-day lives of every American. Cap and Tax, so-called healthcare reform, “Cash for Clunkers”, the trillion dollar stimulus and other legislation being pushed by those currently in the majority are all about power and keeping power for the Democrats and their union allies at the expense of future generations.

Many conservatives want to “clean house” in 2010, literally replacing every member of Congress. This is an unattainable, and in this author’s opinion, irresponsible goal. We know that some members of Congress, like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, are in districts that are so liberal and/or progressive that it would be virtually impossible to unseat them. In addition, there are some GOP members of Congress, like Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence and Jim DeMint that have remembered their conservative principles and more importantly that the law of our republic is still the Constitution.

Some who favor the TEA Party becoming a political party point to the recent election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District as an example of what a third party can accomplish. What these well meaning people ignore is the fact that even with a Republican candidate as liberal as Dede Scozzafava was, chosen in a backroom by Party bosses and who ultimately dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat candidate, the Conservative still candidate lost.

While the frustration that inspired this new political party is understandable and justified, it has led to an ill-conceived and ill-advised transformation of the TEA Party movement into a political party in Florida, that instead of electing more fiscally responsible candidates, may split conservative votes and save or create dozens of liberal/progressive election victories.